50 Cent Dropped 54 Pounds for His Starring Role

50 Cent – real name Curtis Jackson – lost the weight to play the role of a star high-school footballer who is diagnosed with cancer. The rapper, 34, normally weighs 214 pounds and is often seen shirtless, flaunting his muscles. Yet after nine weeks on a liquid diet, Jackson now weighs just 160 pounds, and appears gaunt. He posted these pictures on Twitter, saying he was “starving”. Jackson, who begins a US tour tonight, has assured fans: “I’ve been eating. I’ll be back in shape in no time!”

Like Christian Bale (The Machinist) and Tom Hanks (Castaway) before him, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has shed some serious pounds for his upcoming film Things Fall Apart. In the film, Jackson plays a star running back in his senior year of college who is diagnosed with cancer. Mario Van Peebles (Damages) is directing, and cast himself alongside Jackson, Ray Liotta, and Lynn Whitfield.

50 Cent before and after weight loss

Normally weighing in at 214 pounds, the rapper is often seen shirtless and rather ripped at his shows. After nine weeks of a liquid diet and three hours on the treadmill each day, Fitty shed 54 pounds to achieve middleweight status at 160 pounds. Jackson promised fans, “I’ve been eating. I’ll be back in shape in no time!” Check out some pics of the weight loss after the jump.

50 Cent before and after

50 Cent

That means Jackson lost six pounds a week average — a lot more than the recommended half of a pound to two pounds of weight loss per week. “The weight started coming off and my manager told me, ‘You better get yourself to a doctor!’ I just didn’t want to go because I had to match the look in my mind. I was so into what I was doing that I wasn’t really concerned with that,” the star admitted.

50 Cent’s dramatic weight loss

However 50 Cent’s real inspiration to make it through the grueling diet and fitness regime was his friend who died of cancer. “I had so much muscle on me that it was hard for me to lose definition even as I got lighter and slimmer. I started running to suppress my appetite,” he told Parade. “Towards the end it was really difficult. It was like, if I don’t get close enough to what my best friend looked like to me at that point before he passed, then I’m not doing the story any justice.”